Summer Lunch Program at Tularosa is in full swing. For June 27.

Tularosa serves up free lunches to area kids

TULAROSA -- In the hot, midday sun, more than 40 children line up each day with their friends at James Vigil Park for free summer lunches.

During the summer, the village of Tularosa will offer free lunches for children so that every child has something to eat during the day.

Dianna Brusuelas-Goilez, Tularosa's village clerk, said the village has served about the same amount of free meals to children for the past five years.

"A lot of our parents are working parents and some kids are left home alone. So for those kids, that is their lunch," Brusuelas-Goilez said. "We tried one year to have breakfast and lunch, but the kids wouldn't wake up."

Each lunch served is reimbursed by a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Summer Food Service Program. She said to receive the grant, the village had to follow nutritional value guidelines and restrictions on what and how meals can be served.

"It is all about nutrition," she said.

Brusuelas-Goilez said the program serves whole wheat bread, bananas, milk, pizza, hamburgers, chicken patties, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches -- just a few of the healthy items the program offers. The menu schedule is repeated every two weeks.

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Dana Lopez, who helped the village apply for the grant, said 6,255 meals were served last summer. She said the village expects to serve 6,500 meals this summer when it applied for the grant. Last year, Congress appropriated $398 million for the SFSP program, and in New Mexico 1.8 million meals were served, according to the USDA's website.

"Its an incredible program," Lopez said.

Randi Northrop, librarian for the Tularosa Public Library, said after the library's Summer Reading Program ends, they escort some children to the park for lunch.

"I think it is wonderful," Northrop said. "A lot of these kids wouldn't have any lunch. Sometimes they come in and they are starving because they didn't eat breakfast. I tell them they have to wait to eat. So this is a great program."

Sonya Gililland has been coordinator of the Tularosa summer lunch program for about 18 years and brings lunches to the park every weekday. She said the free lunches have been served for more than 30 years.

"I remember when I was a kid and I would eat the lunches," Gililland said.

She said there are only a few rules for the free lunches: meals are only served to children 1-18 years old, all meals must be consumed within the park and meals are served as a whole. If there are items the child does not want, they can place milk or fruit in an ice chest for others to take.

The free lunches are served from noon to 1 p.m. at James Vigil Park for all children until Aug. 2. No lunches will be served July 4.